


there's love, there is a saviour

by helenecixous



Category: Big Little Lies (TV), Big Little Lies - Liane Moriarty
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 15:29:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11786061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helenecixous/pseuds/helenecixous
Summary: You want to lean back and press your lips to hers, want to bring her close to you and kiss away her tiredness and run your fingers through her hair and tell her that you love her. You want to tell her that she might have saved you, that she might have pulled you back from the cliff’s edge you’d been nearing since Ziggy was born, that she might have provided you with something you’d not had even before Perry had raped you.





	there's love, there is a saviour

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elainebarrish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elainebarrish/gifts).



You love her so much that it makes you ache. It took up residence in your heart and soul and very fibre of your being at some point during the last year - you can’t pinpoint exactly when - it had snuck up on you, bled into you, and slowly, slowly, slowly, it had swallowed you whole. You have become your love for Madeline, become it so surely that you’re certain you must glow. You must  _ radiate  _ it; already you are totally unable to stop the slow smile that tugs at your lips and heart whenever she’s around, incapable of slowing the blush that creeps up your neck when she smiles at you (that small thing that she reserves for you and only you), wont to falling prey to the way your tummy twists and dives when she speaks to you, and you can’t focus on anything else when she touches you.

Those little silent assurances she gives you - squeezing your hand, brushing your arm with the back of her fingers as she passes, and then, in more private moments, tucking your hair behind your ear, cupping your cheek or the side of your neck. And there was that once, the time she had reached up on her tiptoes and brushed her lips over your cheek. Ziggy had laughed, once Maddie had gone, and told you that you looked like a tomato. It was only later when you were getting ready for bed and brushing your teeth that you noticed the dusty pink smudge of lipstick on you and you had frozen, toothbrush hanging forgotten in your mouth, and you had studied your reflection for so long that Ziggy had had to knock on the door and ask if you were okay.

And you were. It was all okay, really. Truly. You had somehow managed to fall in love with Monterey despite everything that happened, and you had watched Ziggy somehow manage to do the same. You watched - and were part of, instrumental, even, in Celeste’s healing. You and her picked up and moved on together. You had watched Maddie forgive and grow to like (love) Bonnie, and you yourself had abandoned your wariness of Renata. You love them all, every single one of them, you love them for their flaws and their perfections and their pettiness and their fears, and nothing about that scares you.

But you love Maddie most of all. You love her like if you stopped loving her you would die. You love her, need her like you need oxygen, and you’d been right there when she’d separated from Ed - he’d got a job offer in New York, and he took it even though it meant leaving Madeline. They split amicably enough, sold the house and halved everything between them, and he comes back to Monterey to see Chloe whenever he can.

Maddie moved to an apartment near Celeste’s, into a small and homey thing, because even though she’d given up the dream of domesticity and ostentatious displays of wealth she couldn’t, and wouldn’t, give up the seaside.

And you find yourself spending more time at Maddie’s than you do at your own house. Ziggy plays with Chloe, the two of them run themselves ragged down on the beach while you and Madeline sit and talk or go for walks or watch TV or cook or bake together, and you eat with them, sometimes Ziggy does his homework there, and then you go home earlier than you would like (for Ziggy’s sake), and fall asleep with something warm and liquid chasing away your fears.

 

You wake up curled up on a sofa that’s not yours. It takes you a few seconds, blinking in the sleepy semi-darkness, to register the smell of coffee and the crashing of the waves outside. You’re at Madeline’s, and there’s a blanket draped over you that hadn’t been there when you were awake, and as you sit up slowly and rub the sleep from your eyes first you see Ziggy, sitting at the kitchen table spooning cereal into his mouth, and then you see Maddie, who’s hushing Chloe and telling her to turn her music down because “it’s still so early, and Jane’s asleep. Come on, honey, just turn it down.”

Ziggy notices you first, and he runs over to you - too full of boundless energy for five o’clock in the morning. “Mom!” he stage whispers, taking your hands and pulling you to your feet. “Maddie made coffee. Bonnie’s going to be here in half an hour, Maddie says.”

“Hey,” Maddie says, smiling and sliding a cup of coffee over the table for you. She pulls her cardigan tighter around her and shivers tiredly.

“I’m sorry I fell asleep,” you say, wrapping your fingers around the hot mug and trying not to think about how you must look - all sleep addled complete with dark circles, and hair that would give Elphaba a run for her money for all its gravity-defying character, you bet. You wrap your arm around Ziggy and stifle a yawn, trying not to stare at Madeline for too long, and wondering how in the hell she’s not asleep where she’s standing.

Maddie smiles at you and sips her coffee, surveying you over the rim. “It’s okay,” she says. “I’m glad you got some sleep.”

“Why can’t you come, Mom?” Ziggy asks, shuffling against you and looking up at you.

“There’s just not that many rooms, babe,” you tell him, for what feels like the thousandth time. “Bonnie and Nathan are gonna take you, Chloe, and Skye to Florida for a week, and I’ll still be here when you get back, okay?”

“Do you promise?” he asks doubtfully, and you’re in the middle of telling him that yes, of course you promise, that you’ll always be here for him when he comes back from wherever he goes, when Maddie passes behind you and briefly touches your hip as she does. In your state of only half awareness, you look over your shoulder and smile, and you’re pleased that her makeup less eyes are wide and bright and tired. You want to lean back and press your lips to hers, want to bring her close to you and kiss away her tiredness and run your fingers through her hair and tell her that you love her. You want to tell her that she might have saved you, that she might have pulled you back from the cliff’s edge you’d been nearing since Ziggy was born, that she might have provided you with something you’d not had even before Perry had raped you.

“Mom?”

“Sorry, babe,” you say quietly, kissing the top of Ziggy’s head instead. “Go on.”

 

You go home later that day Ziggy-less and not as tired as you thought you’d be. You’d left Maddie asleep curled up and snoring softly in an armchair, pausing only to brush her hair from her face gently and pull the blanket from the sofa so you could drape it over her carefully instead.

And when you got home you tidied up a little, put a load of laundry in before you stood in the middle of your living room and realised that this is the first day in six years that you’d be going to bed in an otherwise empty house. You pause to give thought to what it will be like when Ziggy goes off to college (because he will, you’re sure, he’s such a smart kid), and quickly shake that thought off. You’ve seen Gilmore Girls, and Rory going off to Yale had  _ ruined  _ you, so instead of thinking about the absence of your son, you think of Madeline, and how she’d looked that morning when you waved the kids off.

The world had taken on the hazy quality of cold mornings, and Maddie had been wearing a shell pink cardigan, her hair unkempt from all the times she had run her fingers through it - that’s a tic you’ve picked up on; she can’t leave her hair alone when she’s sleepy - and she’d smiled so brightly at Bonnie, a perfect contrast to you, who had tried your best to smile brightly and seem as sunny and alert as Madeline, and failed miserably. You were, at that moment, the polar opposite of her, but that didn’t matter because your tummy was twisting and butterflies were fluttering and then she’d wrapped her arm around your waist and waved as Nathan drove them all off, and you’d been so tired that you’d placed your hand over the one of hers that was on your hip and dreamt of kissing her.

Now, you flop down onto the sofa and stare at the blank TV screen, before you heave yourself back up and order takeout and crack open a beer.

The food comes within an hour, and you curl up with it in your lap and some shit programme on the telly for background noise. You’re half way through your pizza when your phone starts ringing, vibrating insistently on the arm of the sofa. You watch it, startled for a few seconds, until it almost buzzes itself off the sofa kamikaze-style, and then you grab it.

“Madeline? Hey. Everything all okay?”

“Hi, Jane. Yeah, everything’s okay.”

You can hear the smile in her voice, and you move the food onto the table and sit back, getting comfy.

“I feel like we should be out on the pull, getting drunk and making out.”

This makes you laugh, and you grab the blanket from the floor and pull it over yourself. “Should we?”

“First night without the kids?” she asks. “First night in a long time, anyway. We should be having fun. And I don’t know about you, but I just got into bed after having a bubble bath.”

You force yourself to shake away any visuals that had come with that statement, and rub the back of your neck. “I treated myself to a can of beer, a pizza, and, uh…  _ Scandal.” _

“God,” she moans. “Jane, we got old. We got  _ boring.” _

“We’re moms,” you say, laughing as you mute the telly and sit back again, curling up and closing your eyes.

“Yeah,” she says after a moment. “Yeah, I suppose we are. And I wouldn’t change that. I know you wouldn’t either.”

“You’re right.” You wait, wait to see whether she has a reason for calling - you hope that she doesn’t, you fancy that she’s feeling just as lost as you are, and that you’re the person she chose to call from her arsenal of friends.

“I just thought I’d call, see how you’re doing,” she says, as if she can hear your thoughts. “And because this apartment is so fucking quiet. I never thought I’d miss Chloe’s playlists.” You hear a rustle, and realise that she really is in bed, and that she’s just rolled over.

_ Do you want me to come over?  _ you almost ask, but don’t for fear of sounding desperate, or predatory - despite her comment about the two of you and how you should be making out tonight. You worry that you misread her, constantly, that all of the  _ signs  _ you’ve been picking up on aren’t signs at all, that they’re just projections. You do that; you project onto women that you fall for a lot of the time, and this thing with Madeline is too fragile, too precious, for you to fuck up with your blind desire to be loved by her.

“It’s quiet here too,” you say instead, playing with the corner of the blanket. “I keep wanting to get up and make sure Zig’s okay.”

“Is it his first time away?”

“Yeah.” You smile. “I’m sure I miss him more than he misses me.”

“That’s always the way,” she says, and then, softer: “I wish you’d stayed.”

Your heart tries to crawl up your throat, but your tone matches hers for gentleness. “Do you?”

“Doesn’t seem to make much sense, you being there and me being here and both of us not knowing what to do with ourselves. At least if you were still here, we’d have someone to drink wine with and drunkenly cry on about how much we miss our kids.” She already sounds on the cusp of sleep, and it makes you smile.

“I’d drive over,” you say, “but you sound like you’re about twenty seconds from being flat out asleep.”

“Mmm. I  _ am.” _

“Do you think they’re having fun?”

“I think Bonnie’s going to make it fun, no matter what.”

“You’re right.” You were anxious, twenty minutes ago, about how Ziggy was doing, about whether or not he was having fun, whether or not he was safe, but Madeline is right: they’re in capable hands, and you’d be lying if you said you were totally resentful of the quiet.

You feel yourself drifting off slowly, and can’t find it in you to open your eyes or sit up.

“Goodnight, Jane,” Maddie murmurs, and you press the phone to your ear, silently willing her not to go, not yet.

“Night, Maddie.” You don’t hang up, you don’t make any move to, and neither does she. You keep the phone pressed to your ear, listening to her breathing even out, and find that yours does the same.

“Maddie?” you whisper, and get no response, and then you’re asleep, clutching your phone and the blanket, thinking about your life now, your life here in Monterey, your life with these fantastic women - this fantastic  _ woman. _

 

You wake up slowly, swimming through the shallows of sleep until you break the surface and roll over, and almost off the sofa. You steady yourself, swear, and grab your phone to check the time, squinting at the call screen and the time you’ve been connected for blinking merrily at you.

“Good morning,” your phone says, but no, that’s not your phone. You press it to your ear, rubbing your eyes.

“Madeline?”

“Mmhmm.” She sounds irritatingly awake and alert.

“Were we…?”

“Yep.”

“All night?”

“All night.”

“Well shit.” You laugh, and wince at how dry your throat is. You get up, and stumble to the kitchen for a drink, quietly marvelling at the lightness that has flooded through you. You find yourself appreciating the golden light that the sun spits through the windows, admiring the blue skies smattered with dark clouds. “That’s gonna be shit on your phone bill.”

Maddie laughs, and you wonder whether she’s still in bed, or whether she’d gotten up, gone to the kitchen, made herself a drink with her mobile cradled between her ear and her shoulder, waiting for you to wake up.

“Ed’s paying for it,” she says, and you can  _ see  _ her little half shrug. “No skin off my nose.” And then: “it was nice.”

“Yeah,” you say. “It was.”

You wait for what seems like a long time, until Maddie says, “Shall I come over today? We can go for a run. Maybe grab some coffee from The Blue Blues?”

“That would be good,” you say, leaning against a counter and sipping your water, willing yourself to become more awake.

“Say, half nine?”

“Half nine sounds good,” you say, checking the time again and nodding. That would give you enough time to shower, get dressed, and clear up the takeaway boxes from last night. “Yeah. See you then.”

 

She actually gets to yours at nine, and you’ve never been so thankful that you’re always fast in the shower. You’d managed to tidy, make coffee, and spray some air freshener to get rid of the pizza smell by the time she arrived.

You fill up your water bottle, grab your earphones, and you’re out of the door by nine twenty, running by the seafront by nine thirty, and it’s nice to be able to focus on something that’s nothing - on the way your legs burn and on the way you need your lungs to keep steady, instead of the way Madeline looks at you, or the way she talks to you, or the way you look at her.

You’re both half way back to your house when the heavens open, and you’re drenched by the time you get to your door, both of you laughing and shouting and gasping at the cold raindrops that explode on your skin and run down your arms in small rivers. You fall through the door with her, and she’s laughing so breathlessly that you want to bottle up the sound, bottle up the way you’re feeling as you watch her, bottle up the moment and keep it on a high shelf so you can get it down when you need it. When you need her.

“Do you want to shower?” you ask, once you’ve both calmed down and towel dried your hair and got half way through a cup of coffee.

“Oh, can I? That would be  _ wonderful.” _

You nod, and point toward the bathroom. “There are towels and everything in the cupboards,” you say. “You can use Ziggy’s room to get dressed. I can find you some clothes?”

“Jane, you are an angel.”

You grin. “I know,” you say, and stand up so you can find her some clothes that won’t totally drown her, while she heads off to the bathroom and showers.

 

When she comes out of Ziggy’s room, she’s wrapped up in one of your hoodies, and some joggers. She’s free of makeup, her hair damp and pulled back into a messy bun, fresh faced and bright eyed, and you think that your heart might actually give up on you, and you wouldn’t be here for when Ziggy got back, after all. She grins at you, shyly, and sits on the sofa, tucking her legs beneath her.

You excuse yourself so you can shower, and hope that she doesn’t see the blush on your cheeks, or hear the way your voice cracks just slightly. God.  _ Tone it down,  _ you scold yourself, but you can’t keep yourself from staring at her, at the way she’s smiling at you knowingly, and  _ god fuck shitting hell, keep it in your fucking pants, Chapman. _

The bathroom is still steamy from Madeline’s shower, and you’re grateful to step underneath the hot stream. You’ve no idea how much time passes, how much time you spend standing there, watching water cascade from you, thinking about Madeline, but it feels like a lifetime and not long enough at once. Eventually, you get out, wrap a towel around yourself, and cross to Ziggy’s room, where Maddie is perched on the edge of his bed.

“Fuck,” you say, jumping. “Sorry, god, sorry. Are you okay?”

Maddie nods. “I’m sorry,” she laughs. “I didn’t think, I didn’t mean to make you jump.”

You laugh with her, and push your wet hair back from your face. “Do you need anything?”

She shakes her head, and all at once the air seems thick and heavy. You clutch the towel, watching her watch you, her expression totally undefinable. She’s smiling, almost, and you’re pinned beneath her gaze, your mouth dry, your heart hammering your ribcage like a bird trying to get free.

“Maddie,” you try to say, but nothing happens, nothing comes out, because she’s stood up and she’s walking toward you, and your body is doing a million things at once.

“I’ll wait in the living room,” she says, stopping right in front of you. In that moment, you feel just two inches tall, and you can’t look anywhere but at her face, at her eyes (was The Blue Blues named after her? After her eyes? You think it must have been), at the way her lips are parted just slightly, at the way her tongue darts out and wets them. She reaches out and lets a hand rest on your hip, and this is it, you’re actually having a heart attack.

“Jane,” she whispers, and you shiver, as though it’s the first time you’re hearing your own name. And certainly, it’s the first time she (or anyone) has said it like  _ that,  _ like it’s a question and a proposition, and something so loved, so cherished, because fuck, she loves you. You can see it in her eyes, in her smile, in the very air around you, and you’ve completely forgotten how to speak.

“Can I kiss you?” she asks, her voice small, soft, warming you from the inside out, and you’ve got enough time to think  _ here? Now? Like this? While I’m in my towel, Jesus Christ? Why can’t this happen while I’m dressed, at a time where I look good, at a time where I’m prepared? _

But you hear yourself saying yes, yes, of course she can, and as she runs her fingertips over your lips and then kisses you gently, you think that there is no better time for this. No better time for her. She kisses you, and you kiss her, and it lasts for seconds and years, and seconds of years, and it’s everything and nothing all at once. She tastes like toothpaste and coffee and her hair is as soft as you’d imagined as you cup the back of her neck, holding on to her for dear life, and she’s holding your hip and your cheek and she’s kissing you apart, standing on her tiptoes, and if you died right now you’d die the happiest woman on the fucking planet.

“Do you want to stay tonight?” you whisper against her lips, when she pulls back and lets you breathe a bit.

She tips her head back and looks at the ceiling, cocks her head to the sound of the pouring rain, and takes your hand, pressing small kisses to each of your fingertips. “I couldn’t possibly drive back in weather like this,” she says, her eyes wide as she looks at you. “I think I better had.”

**Author's Note:**

> title from silk - wolf alice


End file.
